After surprising everybody by winning the College World Series in 2015, beginning their run as a No. 3 seed in one of the NCAA's sixteen four-team regionals, the Virginia Cavaliers are back with much higher expectations. They have released their 2016 schedule, opening with a three-game tournament against Kent State, Appalachian State, and Coastal Carolina. 

Virginia enters the season with a whopping fourteen freshmen on their roster along with five sophomores and eight juniors. The Cavaliers have only three seniors on their squad. Highly-touted junior outfielder Joe McCarthy and junior southpaw pitcher Nathan Kirby lead Virginia's roster, along with talented senior infielder Kenny Towns. 

After opening their season with the Coastal Carolina Tournament from February 19-21, the Cavaliers return home for a 10-game stretch of home games including 3-game sets against East Carolina and Monmouth. 

After wrapping up their homestand with a 2-game set against Wagner College, Virginia will hit the road to open up their conference play in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) on March 11.  

The Cavaliers will travel to Durham, North Carolina, where they will take on the Duke Blue Devils. Duke was just 10-19 in ACC play last year and missed out on the conference playoffs. 

After a two-game non-conference series versus Towson, the Cavaliers will open their ACC home schedule with three games against Wake Forest who also missed the playoffs with a lackluster 12-18 record in 2015. 

Virginia's first major test comes the following weekend from March 25-27 where they will travel to take on the powerhouse Louisville Cardinals who fell just short of making the College World Series field of eight teams last year, losing to Cal State Fullerton in 11 innings for the final spot. 

That series is followed up by a test against the North Carolina State Wolfpack who made the NCAA Tournament last year and were one win away from making the Super Regionals which features the top sixteen teams in the nation. 

They travel to Boston College,(10-19, missed the ACC playoffs)  and host the University of North Carolina (13-16, finished tied for last with Virginia in the 8-team ACC Tournament) after the NC. State series before possibly their biggest showdown of the year: a three-game series against the Miami Hurricanes, who made the College World Series last season, finishing tied for fifth in the nation. That showdown will take place in Miami from April 22-24. 

Virginia will round out their ACC slate with three-game series at Pittsburgh (9-21, missed the playoffs), home versus Georgia Tech (13-17, lost to Virginia in an ACC Tournament play-in game), and, finally, home versus Virginia Tech, (lost to UNC in an ACC Tournament play-in game). 

Also scattered throughout Virginia's schedule are a sprinkling of non-conference games, their toughest being a road game on April 5th against Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), a squad that made the Super Regionals last season.

Their final ACC series ends on May 21 and the ACC Tournament begins at Duke's stadium on May 24. 

This year, the Virginia Cavaliers have several returning threats and a strong freshman class so look for those Cavaliers to be playing late into June.